Chancellor Biography

Dr. Margaret Ford Fisher

Margaret Ford Fisher, Ed.D., serves as the ninth chancellor of Houston Community College (HCC) overseeing a 7-college organization that serves more than 88,000 students per year. HCC expands across 700 square miles at 22 locations in the nation’s fourth largest city.

Since joining HCC in 1985, Ford Fisher’s career in higher education has been defined by a series of progressive leadership positions and notable professional accomplishments including being named the inaugural president of HCC Online College, leading to the establishment of more than 60 fully online degrees and 70 hybrid programs, building a 62,000-plus enrollment. The Online College is also the division of the Institution that has been recognized by Newsweek as “One of America’s Best Online Colleges” for 2022 and again for 2023. Previously, she served 20 years as HCC Northeast College president.

Ford Fisher has been a lifelong advocate for education locally, nationally, and internationally.  She currently serves as a board member of the Greater Houston Partnership, Texas Association of Community Colleges, Global Community College Leadership Network and the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce. She has held a three-year elected term on the AACC board, serving on the organization’s Commission on Technology and Infrastructure Support and its International Relations Commission. She represented the organization before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy on National Science Foundation issues and was AACC’s spokesperson at the international meetings of ministers of education in Windsor, Canada. Additionally, she has presented at the “University & College Teaching and Learning” conference in Lausanne, Switzerland and at the Oxford International Roundtable for Community College Presidents in Oxford, England. 

Ford Fisher has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards and honors, including being named one of the 50 Most Influential Women of 2023 by Houston Woman Magazine, one of the Top 30 Influential Women of Houston by D-Mars, the Humanitarian Award from the Latino Learning Center, and the esteemed World Affairs Council Jesse Jones Award for Global Education & Institutional Leadership.

Her awards and honors include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Honorable Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee at the Rice University Community Forum upon her 2012 publication, Learning for Ownership, and Senior Education Advisor designation by the Honorable Rodney Ellis, former State Senator. She received the LULAC Council 42 Appreciation Award, the W. E. B. DuBois Award from the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the District Award of Merit from the Sam Houston Council of Boy Scouts of America—Antares District, and the Visionary Leaders Award from the Northeast College faculty and staff.

Ford Fisher has authored more than 50 publications and four books, including the first book on high school dual credit, High School Students Earning College Credit: Guide to Creating Dual Credit Programs (1996).

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in the Teaching of English from Wichita State University and a Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Houston.